To be annoyed those who are good are not rewarded?

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It's just been announced who will get the year reward on Monday. It's kids who have been on report (which means isolation, letters home and teacher support) the reason being they have tried hard.
My daughter is beside herself. She is predicted below average grades but has studied, done extra lunch time work and tried every single lesson and now is at expected or just above. This has been down to pure determination. She doesn't find it easy to behave, she works all the time to earn her merits and yet none of the hard working conscienous pupils get a reward.
I've told her that hard work is its own reward and that in the long run it will all be worth it. But is it so difficult for the teachers to realise that the quiet hard working kids need some recognition?

YANBU.

I remember back in the 80s early 90s being jealous because the naughty kid who.lived.next door would get special.treats and.days out to keep him on the right track........ culminating in a sports holiday.

Stuff like that matters to kids.

Thanks all. I expected to be slated but it means so much to dd. I've tried to teach her that rewards do not validate her but it is hard. I will continue to support.

It's always been the same OP. The girl who has been absolutely rotten to my dd for a while got student of the year last week. She must be a very good actress.

Your dd sounds lovely, very similar to mine.

I think some schools have got it right but the majority have not. Ds is 15 and being assessed for autism. He is always well behaved, does his homework and tries hard. He is never rewarded even when he does well. In some subjects he is near the top of the year group. He can't communicate or interact very well though, so he is pretty much ignored.

He achieved 56 achievement points this year, he needed 60 to get his bronze award. The most in his year group was 269 points, I'm not sure how that is even possible. Ds has incredibly low self esteem and I've told the school so many times but he continues to be ignored for rewards, he says he is stupid. He's predicted 7 and 8s for gcses although could possibly achieve some 9s too if his coping mechanisms don't fall apart. His school state in their behaviour document online that those that misbehave will receive more points than those that are consistently well behaved. This is at a state grammar. Ds has spent the last 4 years watching others receive awards and certificates. Yesterday they handed out the certificates for the year 10 national physics competition. Ds had come 3rd in the year group but his certificate had been forgotten so he watched everyone else receive theirs. My child is pretty much invisible.

Ds has a huge amount going on in his life at the moment and sometimes just going to school is a struggle but because he doesn't misbehave or kick off he will never receive the praise he deserves.

@Ronnie27 If your child isn’t bringing one of those home you know they are doing ok.

We've just experienced this first hand. My SS is always coming home with stickers and teddies and rewards for supposedly doing well, and is absolutely gushed over for it. Today we spoke to his teacher and found out that as we privately suspected he's actually significantly behind most of his classmates and won't stay still and listen. How is he or any of his family supposed to know that if he's constantly getting rewarded as if he's doing really well? I understand encouraging children who are struggling but at the same time he has no notion that he might need to push himself a bit more because he is constantly being rewarded for minor things and led to believe he's doing brilliantly if he so much as doesn't wonder off. He has no motivation to work harder at all.

It’s difficult. I totally understand why she would feel disillusioned and you would be pissed off. But at the same time, most research indicates that reward systems are counterproductive long term. She needs to find her own motivation for working hard and applying herself.

We’ve been trying to encourage effort by celebrating rather than rewarding (it’s a fine distinction and I’m not sure if it’s effective yet!) so we celebrate a year well done. We celebrate effort even when they fail. We ask them a lot about how they feel about how things are going. How they like x, y, and z that their teacher mention they tried hard at. We point out how impressed their teachers/friends/family are with things they’ve done.

It’s a work in progress, as is most parenting, but it seems to be keeping them engaged. It helps that their school is of the same mind on the value of rewards so we don’t have to deal with why all the kids who disrupt the class or aren’t ever sick or happen to be brilliant get called-up to the stage/go on a picnic/get a medal/etc. But we also have to explain why the ones who keep disrupting the lessons don’t get sent out of the room, banned from the camping trip/etc.

It's the way of the world often. I was told that my dcs were all solid hard workers with high achievement all through high school but never once did any of them receive an award for it. One of them told me it's only the naughty children who go in the newsletter.

When I was in secondary, the pupils who managed to keep a clean report for a week were taken out of school to go to a go kart track.

What did those of us who were consistently good get? Nitto. Nowt. Zilch.

It rankled.

My school also seemed to have this obsession with teachers trying to ‘save’ the naughty ones. It was always very obvious that they preferred the personality of the more challenging kids. The environment was pretty toxic and set me up for a life of people pleasing I’m only just starting to unpick.
The pp that said learn self motivation, rather than relying on external validation had it spot on. It’s probably one of the most valuable assets we can give our children. Especially in the climate of social media and ‘likes’.
I totally get where you’re coming from. Thankfully the real world doesn’t work like this so you could say it’s detrimental in the long run for a child to get into this bad behaviour / good behaviour / reward cycle.

We learnt on a course I did that Montessori didn’t believe in external rewards; interesting article here. I totally understand what Montessori means! I haven’t done very well though as my sodding DD pipes up ‘can I have a toy?’ every time I tell her she’s done something well. I keep having to shut her down 🙄

I was sad though recently seeing a friend’s DC coming out of school sobbing because their sibling had an award and not them. My friend said she’s already talking about ‘not bothering to try’ in response. We both agreed that awards are often given to the children who ‘need them more’ but despite my friend quietly telling her that, it’s not helped.

The only potential positive is that they seem to save the positions like prefects and house captains for the consistently good children, so she’ll hopefully be recognised through one of those.

@Punxsutawney that’s so horrible for your poor son. It astounds me that teachers can actually do this and not think about how it makes the child feel. I hope he gets great results and starts reaping the rewards when he enters the job market instead.

Children are so sensitive to inequality; I always watch to make sure the ones who are often naughty don’t get blamed by assumption, and the quiet ones are recognised without having to shout about it.

We don't have this. In fact the opposite- these kids have to stay in an extra week while the others get off a week early. It's called a catch up week. Seems to work quite well!

So the 'good' ones get off school a week early

I hope that one day someone sees that he has potential Eugenes. Unfortunately the damage has already been done at secondary. He starts year 11 in September. There is now SEN support for him but he will still be forgotten when it comes to rewards. I just wish the staff realised what an impact it has, especially on vulnerable young people when they are constantly ignored and overlooked. Sometimes they have no idea what the quiet and well behaved child is going through. Just because they are completing their work and not misbehaving it doesn't mean that their needs are any less important than those kicking off.

Send them to a grammar school - they genuinely ignore kids with questionable behaviour and heap praise on the hard workers and clever kids. Rightfully so, but if my kids went to a non Grammar they would be rewarded for their bad behaviour and I could sit in assembly and feel proud.

As it is, they missed out both times. At primary they were well behaved and studious but lost out at prize giving to the naughty kids. By senior school they were outnumbered by clever kids who got all the praise. Again, rightly so but it means they have been ignored throughout their whole time at school.

Us used to be a grammar (and still thinks it is). they do the extra catch up week and also send the naughty ones to a 'work room' where they work in silence.

DayswithaY my Ds is at a grammar and it is the complete opposite to that. They go out of their way to reward and praise those with poor behaviour. Interestingly when my eldest went to a secondary modern they always made a real fuss of those that were well behaved and willing to work hard.

In similar circumstances i once heard my very grand friend say briskly to her son “we don’t need external validation in our family darling we know how well you do” which I actually thought a great message !

We had a talk before they started telling us all that we all need to cultivate an attitude of working hard = cool and bad behaviour is not and that if we all do that from the start it pays off, with the behaviour. It does seem to work- it is an all boys school as well. They all have to stand up when a teacher comes in as well. they just have high expectations for behaviour and a strong '3 strikes and you are in the work room' policy. One was suspended for a week for chewing gum and swearing. (single swear word).

they also have 'positives' for good behaviour as well.

YABU. You can recognise her and reward her in your own way.

‘Everyone will have prizes’ is not a good life lesson. Working because of external rewards is also not a good mind set for the long term, being internally driven and interested and passionate will get you further in life IMHO.

Also, OP will of course have a different perspective to the teachers. Dd is OPs child and of course she deserves the reward, teachers have to weigh the decision across over 100 children in the school.

As part of the work I do now (part-time, I'm technically retired) I have been visiting two schools for secondary children with SEMH (social, emotional & mental health issues) - behaviour, in a nutshell, which has meant they're unable to cope in mainstream.

Both these schools use a system in which each child must, at the end of each lesson, self-assess against a grade/colour system. I've observed lessons and the children are remarkably honest about themselves in their discussions with staff.

The schools use rewards, but these are based on the children meeting a range of behaviour-related criteria each term. I was in one of the schools this week when reward trips (cinema, etc) were happening and some children were not going because they hadn't met the criteria.

In other words, you get the reward as default - unless you behave in ways that exclude you. Seems much more fair to me.

@Punxsutawney maybe it wouldn't hurt for you to tell them again how it's making him feel, and ask them to perhaps make an exception to their policy given he's more like to see things in black and white, and be less able to understand.

Although it sounds like a rubbish policy to be honest and is probably upsetting other parents besides you.

Eugenes, he actually has it written into his SEN plan for him to be rewarded with points for good work. It's just ignored! I have been wanting to bring it up with the school for a while but it just seems so petty compared to some of the other battles we have been fighting with them. It does have a negative impact on him though.

Just tell her the truth that her school is using rewards as a way of motivating the kids who most need it, and because she’s bright and hardworking she doesn’t. Then take her out somewhere to celebrate. Things will improve as she progresses into secondary and beyond because that is when hard work truly starts paying off and schools start focussing on exam results.